String Art

Creating string art is a fun mix of art, creative thinking, and experimentation all rolled into one open-ended package.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll know that when it comes to children’s projects, my focus lies on the experience of creating more than the product.

My 4-year old, who has been calling herself Leia for the past month (as in Princess Leia — and yes, she’s been wearing the Leia costume she got for Christmas for the past 24 hours!), adds string to everything she makes. And my 2-year old, who we like to call Rainbow on this blog (here’s the story of how that began), said that she wanted to paint. So this experience was the perfect marriage of their interests on this rainy morning.

To get started, you only need a few simple materials.

Materials

Washable tempera paint, poured into small bowls

Short pieces of string

Copy paper and/or cardstock

Spoons to help cover the string in paint

Table covering (optional)

Baby wipes or a damp towel to clean hands

Creative Invitation

Without giving my children too much direction, I like to set up our projects up as invitations to create. I might make a suggestion or give a brief prompt, but I trust that the materials speak volumes to children. The less that I interject, the more opportunity they’ll have to find their own voice and make independent decisions.

With this project, Leia and Rainbow spent some time dancing their painted strings across the paper. After this ran its course I folded a sheet of paper in half and offered a suggestion that they could try pulling the string through the shut paper.

More experiments

This resulted in a symmetrical mirror image painting, which inspired Leia to try pulling more than one string through the paper at once. She then tested the process of holding one paint-soaked string in each hand, and pulling them through at the same time. I obviously needed to step in an assist her on this one.

They struggled with gaining control over the string and occasionally complained about getting paint on their hands, but the complexity of working with this tricky combination of paint and string challenged them to work with familiar materials in a new way.

What other materials could you combine with paint to make it more interesting and less common?

When I saw this idea over at We Heart Art, I loved it for its open-ended qualities and simplicity. Joanna did this project with Kindergarteners, but it was adaptable to my 3-year old and could easily scale up for older children. Plus, the monster theme played out so nicely with Halloween right around the corner. Grrrrr….

And, are you ready to hear how easy this is? All you need are about 20″ of yarn, paper, and some markers or crayons.

We talked about witches, ghosts, and jack-o’-lanterns all morning, so when I asked if N wanted to make a monster she was game. In general, she hasn’t drawn too many realistic drawings, so I was curious to see where this experiment would go. We each started out with a piece of yarn. I moved the yarn around my page to make an organic shape, connected the two ends to close it, and then traced an outline around the shape. N took note and did the same. So far, the process intrigued her.

We removed the yarn and I invited her to turn it into a monster. And this is what’s so cool about this project: There’s no expectation and the outcome is totally up to the child’s imagination. The red apostrophe shape she’s working on is a little baby monster. Awwww. At first glance I thought it was the mouth, which is a good reminder on why it’s best to never make assumptions and ask the child about their work without making interpretations!

Okay, now you can see the mouth. Ferocious!

She also added some arms, eye lashes, a forehead, a belly button, and fur. It’s kind of Jabba the Hutt, no? And despite it’s obvious scariness, I love it!

Have you ever heard that people learn as they teach? (In case you’re wondering, it can be credited to the Roman philosopher, Seneca — I had to look it up, and subsequently learned about it so I could share it with you!). Well, N’s friend came over the next day, and at one point in the afternoon the two of them sat down at the art table and she independently showed him how to make a monster! You can imagine my surprise and delight — I guess she really embraced the concept and thought it was worth sharing.

I met up with the Los Angeles-based Trash for Teaching at the Maker Faire last weekend. Trash for Teaching is an organization that collects factory overruns and byproducts and redistributes them to teachers, schools, and museums for open-ended art making and tinkering. This is great for teachers with small materials budgets, inspiring for children to think creatively about how to repurpose materials, and wonderful for the environment. If you’re a Bay Area teacher, we’re lucky to have the incredibleRAFT (Resource Area for Teaching) right here in San Jose.

I was given a few bags of materials to play with, and N and I enjoyed looking through the rolls, styrofoam, colorful papers, foil, cups, and sticks for inspiration.

Wouldn’t you agree that this is right up my alley?

Each bag was thematic, and one of the themes included materials that could be turned into string cup telephones. Do you remember tin can telephones? This is a a funny take on that idea.

Since Trash for Teaching is all about upcycling cast-off materials into something new, the big question today is “what was the original purpose of the cups you see in the picture below?” Bonus points and a big virtual trophy to you if you have the correct answer! (Keep in mind that these materials came straight from the factory floor and were never used otherwise!).

Make a string cup telephone set. It’s ridiculously simple, and worked great.

Drill small holes in the bottom of each cup.

Find a piece of string about three feet long.

Thread the ends of the string through each of the cups. Tie off with big knots.

Ring, Ring! Find a partner, pull the string taught, and you’re reading for some telephone play.

“I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, – happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.”~Brenda Ueland

This is a handy little fine motor project to keep around for a rainy day. I’ve also been know to stash a little sack of beading stuff into my diaper bag for those inevitable restless restaurant moments. I don’t know about you, but my child has no interest in cafe crayons. None. We recently had lunch at a restaurant that gave out Wikki Stix intead of crayons, and those well-loved Wikkis are still floating around the back of my car. Kid-friendly restaurants, take note!!

Anyhoo, we started by stringing oversized beadswhen my daughter was 1 1/2, and around age 2 she was able to handle the smaller stuff. These little pieces are obviously not for kids who mouth small objects, but they work for us. Use your best judgement!

You need a bunch of beads and some plastic lacing, also called Gimp. If you were ever a Girl Scout or made lanyards, you know what I’m talking about. I found some fun sparkly stuff, along with the beads, at JoAnne Fabrics in the kids craft area. Make sure that your lacing will fit through the hole of your beads.

Tie a knot at one end of the lacing to stop the beads from sliding off, and then show your child how to poke the beads onto the lacing.

Once N got the hang of it, we extended this by stringing all beads of one color or one object. We also made a Fall Necklace line, which was completely scrapped before it ever made its way to the runway. After our trip to Mexico this summer, N got really into sea turtles. So, for two days she would ONLY string sea turtles and fish on the lacing, regardless of my gentle prompts. Now there’s a kid who knows her mind!

What have you and your kids made with beads?

More Art Projects for Toddlers

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